Monday, June 11, 2007

A mismanagement of city water is as responsible for water shortage as bad infrastructurefor : Three controversial proposals will be discussed in the BMC standing committee meeting today. They are the water audit, Powai Garden beatification and development of a Dadar pumping station as a garden are to be brought up. These three proposals were first presented in the committee on April 11. But due to some reasons they were not taken up. And as per the rules if the committee does not take any decision, the proposals are considered to be automatically passed.

The most controversial proposal is to conduct a study of Mumbai's water supply system. This includes a water audit, computation of UFW and leak detection. Mumbai has been getting a piped water supply since 1868. Presently, Mumbai needs around 4,000 MLD of water supply, but the total water supply is 3,100 MLD. The proposal highlights that around 20 to 25 per cent water gets wasted daily due to these leakages," said the Hydraulic Engineer of the BMC."For the proposed work, an 'expression of Interest' (EoI) was invited from the Technical Service Providers (TSPs), which were registered by the Government of Maharashtra. An advertisement inviting an EoI from competent companies dealing in this field was also displayed on the BMCwebsite from October 20, 2005 to October 29, 2005 to ensure an enhanced global response. In answer to this, 7 consultants responded," the engineer added.After following procedure only Shah Technical Consultants Private Limited qualified on October 26, 2006. So the proposal recommended that the agreement be signed with them. As per its proposal the company has experience in the field, having undertaken similar projects in Bangalore and Nagpur. However according to records, the present additional municipal Commissioner Manukumar Shrivastav was the head for seven years in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation.Reliable sources in the BMC said, "The controversial proposal of a water audit, worth Rs. 77.68 crores will be the hot issue of debate in today's meeting. It may get rejected, as the proposal is very vague. Apart from this the same project is being done in the K/East ward for around Rs. 6.5 crores. However they took around 2 years to complete this project and are still yet to show ground results. This new audit too, may not have any results. So spending crores of rupees on studies, when we don't have infrastructure to implement the reforms, is a foolish thing."